Think Progress

Bolton’s Friends Rise to His Defense

In seeming response to the nearly 60 former diplomats who spoke out against the nomination of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador, a different coalition of former diplomats are praising Bolton in their own letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The “counterattack” is organized by Frank Gaffney Jr., “a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.” Since he himself once referred to the United Nations as “bloated, scandal-ridden and oppressor-dominated,” it is fitting that Frank Gaffney would rise to the defense of a fellow United Nations disparager such as Bolton.

Gaffney on Hans Blix: “Hans Blix, the hapless Swedish diplomat chosen by Saddam’s friends on the Security Council…”

Gaffney on the United Nations General Assembly: “[T]he United Nations’ General Assembly, in which every member nation gets one vote, and the lowest common denominator of anti-Western sentiments … usually enjoys overwhelming majorities.”

Gaffney on the U.S. seeking international cooperation through the U.N.: “The spectacle of the greatest power in the world being reduced to begging the likes of Guinea and Angola for support has demeaned this nation even as it shows the true, unsavory character of a ‘world body’ governed by parochial interests, not some higher virtue.”

Gaffney and the U.N.’s relevance to the War on Terror: “[I]t seems unlikely this attempt to create a useful ‘world body’ or ‘international community’ will succeed in dealing with the real security challenges of the 21st century — in particular, terrorist-sponsoring and proliferating regimes — any more than the League of Nations did in the last one.”

Gaffney on what the Iraqi people are saying: “And I heard — when I was in Iraq a couple of months back, I heard them say please don’t turn us over to the tender mercies of U.N., an organization that propped up Saddam Hussein and used billions of dollars of his money.” [CNN, 4/27/04]